Late Friday, the House Republicans unveiled their proposal for funding the remainder of fiscal year 2011. The proposal includes devastating cuts in the higher education accounts.

AASCU institutions are urged to contact their Representative in the House and both Senators and offer campus focused explanations of the impact that will be felt with the following outlined cuts. Even if your House Member is a Republican, please call the office as they need to understand the full impact of these cuts. It may help as the House and Senate negotiate the final funding levels.

First, the bill proposes a Pell Grant maximum award of $4,705 – an $845 reduction from the current amount of $5,550. While this is a 15% reduction in Pell, it will have greater impact on institutions as current Pell students will no longer be eligible for the receipt of any Pell funding.

Second, all other campus-based federal aid is zeroed-out, except for the Federal Work-Study Program. Primarily, the Supplemental Education Opportunity Grants (SEOG) and the Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnerships (LEAP) would be eliminated.

Third, the House measure eliminates all funds for the Teacher Quality Partnership Grants. This program is the only funding stream dedicated to institutions of higher education for the preparation of teachers.

Fourth, it nearly zeroes-out all discretionary funds for the Hispanic Serving Institutions and reduces discretionary funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities by $85 million. In addition, it eliminates funding for Predominantly Black Institutions, Asian American Pacific Islander institutions, and the Strengthening Tribal Colleges programs.

Fifth, the bill reduces TRIO funding by $25 million and GEAR-UP funding by $20 million.

This reduction in funding is a result of conservative Republicans demanding that the measure to fund the remainder of FY2011 come before the House with overall non-security discretionary funding $100 billion below the President’s request. It is important to note that the higher education funding cuts were a result of a backlash to an initial proposed funding measure that would have made $74 billion in reductions to the President’s initial request. The initial proposal had only minor impact on the higher education accounts and did not include Pell funding.

The House will begin debate on the measure Tuesday with a final vote expected either on Thursday or Friday. The bill will then go to the Senate and differences will need to be finalized.